THE LAST WORD:

“When the price of gasoline goes up $1 per gallon, the hit to [Huntington Beach’s] budget is an additional $500,000. That is the equivalent of five new police officers patrolling neighborhoods.”

Those are Debbie Cook’s own words from her congressional campaign website. And they are true enough.

But what the self-styled environmentalist fails to tell you is that when the price of gasoline goes up $1 per gallon she hits the jackpot with her stock portfolio. Yes, the Huntington Beach mayor has Big Oil investments.

Doesn’t this sound like Hillary Clinton’s campaign strategist Mark Penn promoting the Columbia Free Trade Agreement while his client opposes it? Actually, it’s worse. Imagine the New York senator getting paid to promote it while publicly opposing it.

Cook tried to brush it all off, but we find her defense lacking.

“I’ve never bashed the oil industry,” she said.

No, mayor, you’ve argued that we must invest in green energy while investing in companies dedicated to perpetuating our dependence on fossil fuels.

“It’s absolutely essential to our economy,” Cook said.

You might think that judging from her campaign literature she was talking about alternative energy sources. She wasn’t. She was referring to oil.

The average voter ought to consider those words not only at the gas pump, but at the ballot box too.